Ice Metal 1: Uninstall [Ver: 1.4.2]

[DonnyDonovan]

Just wanted to say I finished this and it was absolutely worth the wait.  As an exploration-based hack it's among the elites.  The non-linearity is tremendous.  The look and feel are top-notch.  If anything I would have preferred slightly more difficulty, but this is one of the best hacks in existence, bar none.

[Prime Hunter]

I've been playing this for a few hours now, and I'd have to agree with DonnyDonovan. Other than one spot where I thought I got perma-stuck (turns out it was just a very well hidden SM block that would let me out) I've had next to no complaints with this whatsoever. Most, if not all, of the other hacks I've played up to this point have had some aspect that I disagree with the first time through, but Ice Metal has been unique in that I can't really think of anything bad to say about it. Sure, there has been a room or two that has had something I didn't like, but nothing big enough to drag the entire hack down like has happened to me before.

As far as first impressions go, Ice Metal is definitely giving all of the other hacks I've finished a run for their money.

Edit: Oh yeah, I've been very impressed with how open ended this world is compared to most of the others I've played. I came to this topic earlier to see if anyone else had run into the same issue I had (and there was one person who at least confirmed for me that there was a way out) and I saw a ton of different routes and item progressions. That alone is a HUGE plus in my book, since just from my little experience with trying to create a hack/world myself I can tell how hard that must have been to pull off as successfully as it was.

[Lunaria]

Ice Metal is now up on ROMhacking.net [Link]

Feel free to leave a review there if you have the time, this goes to anyone who feels like it! :p

[PreApocalyptica]

Excellent hack, comrade. I picked it up a few hours ago and haven't stopped until just now. I seem to have a slight problem.

[spoiler]
I just swung through Deep Ice after picking up the X-Ray Scope, and decided to search out any Power Bomb doors in Surface.

Door opened, let's go through.

Oh my. This does not look good.

Not good at all.

I can't move, except to turn back and forth. Shooting does nothing.

Neither does bombing.

Apparently I'm back in Deep Ice.

A Power Bomb will open the door, but won't do anything else.

I should also note that trying to get in from the other end (the murky water area with the large Sidehoppers) results in the same glitch.
EDIT: Oh bollocks, it looks like entering that room at all is going to be a no-go.

At least I'm not alone in my glitchy prison. Hi, Ripper!

[/spoiler]

I'm really hoping I didn't screw up patching, somehow. US/JPN ROM, no header. Sorry for basically joining to whine; I absolutely adore this hack otherwise and I've already recommended it to my even-more-Metroid-fanatical brothers.

[Orel]

Try using Snes9x or bsnes, zsnes has problems with that room for whatever reason.

[VideoGeemer]

Try using Snes9x or bsnes, zsnes has problems with that room for whatever reason.

I use ZSNES and didn't have any problems there, so I'm thinking it may have been an issue with the patch. I used (JU) [!] with 1.2 and then the re-palette. In the Phazon Hack, there are a couple of rooms that seem to be problematic in similar ways (but only graphical) after Kraid is killed, but are fine before that. This has me wondering if there is a similar trigger for this problem in this hack. If not, perhaps it really is just the patch.


VG

EDIT: My ZSNES is version 1.51

[Lunaria]

It's an emulator glitch, try updating your emulator to latest version or switch to another one.

[PreApocalyptica]

Hurr, why didn't I think of that? I have the newest ZSnes but I was only using it for Metal Max Returns. Thanks!

[buttbutts]

Sooo.. I'm kinda stuck. Obviously, spoilers ahead.

[spoiler]I'm at the point where the elevator from the core stops working and you exit to the right into the big room where you keep losing health. You can't go back to the elevator, the hidden room about halfway up on the left is a dead end as far as I can see, you can't go up unless you have space jump (which I don't), or have the nerve to bombjump all the way to the top (which I did). However, I keep losing health in the following rooms and there's a golden chozo up there that whomps my arse because I'm constantly losing HP and the fight drags on.  

I have the gravity suit, jumpball, wave beam, x-ray and grapple. Beat Kraid, Phantoom, Ridley and that wormthing. Never found Draygon. I didn't use any glitches or cheats (unless you count walljumping from a single wall here and there to get up and of course bomb jumping). Is there any way out?[/spoiler]

[Lunaria]

@Buttbutts:
[spoiler]
If you read the map station log before the metroids, you where warned that unless you had enough supplies you would get your arse kicked. And no, there is no way out from there, it's perfectly possible to beat him with wave and charge, I do suggest using super missile spam against him until you run out of those then supplement with charge shots until he dies.

The area is set up like Tourian in the original, once you go too far in, you can't get out. But hey, at least I was nice enough to warn the players, unlike the original.[/spoiler]

[buttbutts]

My current resources aren't enough to outlast him and I savestated in the elevator AND the last other save is kinda old.. but luckily infinite super missiles were just two value searches away :p

Well, all in all this was pretty nice. Maybe a bit boring first but it got interesting soon enough. Exploration was quite fun until I ran out of decently obvious places - I practically looked everywhere I could for power bombs except in the right spot for hours. This was made worse by being able to get to so many places early with a little bomb and single-wall jumping. In the end I just had so many areas to search and it started becoming quite frustrating.

Also some enemies are a bit too tough IMO. They still don't pose a threat because they're slow and stupid, so most of the time they feel like they're just unnecessarily slowing down the game. Get into position, hold down fire button and wait. Zzzzzzz

But that aside, it's a very nice hack, especially compared to the last one I played (Redesign). Now to load that other save and look for Draygon! And Space Jump! And.. Spazer (and Ice.. and Plasma) :/

[Lunaria]

Well everything is very heavy exploration based, and I'm pretty sure I left some sort of hint for every item, even though some are less obvious. That, and I gave up X-ray fairly early on for anyone who lack confidence and wants to search using it.

[PreApocalyptica]

Yeah, I leaned on X-Ray pretty hard after Phantoon. Still took me 5:07 to finish with 205/35/40, though. No Ice Beam, no Screw Attack.
[spoiler]GT was fun, if anticlimactic. I had full life so I didn't really feel pressured, even with the constant drain.
Also, what's in here?

I'm assuming it's one of the powerups mentioned as being in multiple places, meaning that I picked it up elsewhere.[/spoiler]
All in all, best hack I've played this year.

[VideoGeemer]

So I got back to that room, this time with the gravity suit equipped ... and I discovered that lava still hurts even with that suit. But at least this time I was able to jump properly and get out. :)

There's a room nearby with a missile expansion in some lava as well, which I had to jump into in order to get it. Well, at least, that's all I could think to do. Perhaps there's a trigger later in the game that eliminates that lava, since Crys made it sound like there should be no reason to wade through any damaging lava in this hack.


I have found a couple more minor bugs:

[spoiler][/spoiler]

In this one, the map (minimap and full map) show this door in the wrong place. The door to the left takes you (on the map) one screen up as well, to the room you can see in the minimap.


Next, another minor map error. This time the item dot is simply one screen over from the actual item.

[spoiler][/spoiler]


And finally, I'm not sure if this is actually a bug or if it's intentional. I got hit by a metroid, and my suit continued glowing after the threat had been dispatched. Well, mostly dispatched, anyway, as the inside of the metroid remained after it was dead. :) This happened with others as well, so it's not an isolated incident.


EDIT: In response to PreApocalyptica's post below:

Yeah, I seem to remember that now. So it may be really just the remaining suit glow then (that might not have been intentional to be in the hack). However, I thought I had used missiles on the metroids, but I don't remember for certain. It looks cool, either way.

[spoiler][/spoiler]


Still having some good times with this one. I got a little frustrated when I couldn't find power bombs, but when I finally did, it was one of those "Oh, I should have thought to go there" moments. It seems to me that some hacks try a little too hard to be difficult. For example, Eris's two-hit deaths and mega-hidden items (charge beam) got frustrating for me, and I've seen enough of Golden Dawn, etc rooms to know I'd rather not go there, lol.



VG

EDIT: Comment on PreApocalyptica's post has been inserted above.

[PreApocalyptica]

It was mentioned earlier in the thread that the Metroid shells do remain if you kill them through weak methods.

[Orel]

I have all but 2 items at this point and i think i may know where one of them might be, anyone wanna help me with this one?

[spoiler]How the hell do i get over there?  I have this feeling that evil kirby is hiding something over there..
[/spoiler]

[Tyjet66]

Orel, I posted about this a few pages back but never got a response, I believe that that is just an easter egg.

[Lunaria]

Orel, I posted about this a few pages back but never got a response, I believe that that is just an easter egg.

^ The truth.

[Xaggoth]

Was playing this on a mobile emulator that isn't snes9x or zsnes... at first I was freezing at the entrance to GT, then I applied the recent patch and now I freeze on the transition after GT.  No savetstates from before the fallblock of no return before the elevator or no return.  Argh, I'll finish this someday, but I'm not about to replay it now.

Thoughts so far:
Pretty goddamn awesome.  It's easier for me to remember things I don't like though, like gray doors that close behind you in phantoons area that make you run around it loops for not so much of a reason.  I liked how you worked in those MP2 tiles you posted about a long time ago.  I didn't catch all the map stations, but I enjoyed the ones I read.  Items are littered everywhere, which is always fun and like you said, there are graphical hints everywhere.  I didn't find everything I probably should have on a casual partial first playthrough, so good job.

[danidub]

I have completed this game twice this week and did not see the time passed.
I will be happy to share the map I have made for this very entertaining game.
Thank you Crys for your nice job and tell me when you want me to publish it.

[Lunaria]

Feel free to publish it when you feel like it... but keep in mind that it should go under spoiler tag in this topic. =)

[danidub]

Ice Metal Uninstall Map

Please tell me if you see that something is missing or is incorect.

[Lunaria]

At first glance it looks very nice... but then I started to see quite a few errors. :P

[spoiler]
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9395043/fixed%20IM%20map.png[/spoiler]

There might be more that I failed to notice... but yeah, these are the ones I found.

FYI, the item is called Megaball, no matter how confusing it may seam in-game.

edit:
Also FYI, the game is called "Ice Metal - uninstall" not "super metroid ice metal, etc"

[danidub]

Thanks for the infos.
Except for the SM logo, the map is updated.
I will retouch it later.

[Lunaria]

Heavy spoiler:
[spoiler]The area above steamfair is in fact above all other areas in the game... as it's some sort of mountain temple thingy, which is why it makes no sense for it to be below kraids area.[/spoiler]